This is the Judo blog of Lance Wicks. In this blog I cover mainly Judo and related topics. My Personal blog is over at LanceWicks.com where I cover more geeky topics. Please do leave comments on what you read or use the Contact Me form to send me an email with your thoughts and ideas.

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JudoCoach.com Blog by Lance Wicks

On the format of Judo competitions....

Friday, October 24, 2014, 02:36 AM

As many readers will know I have an obsession with elite Judo and spend majority of my freetime working on projects related to that obsessions.

I travel to many international Judo competitions and administrate the Junior World Ranking List on behalf of the IJF.

And increasingly I ponder the format of Judo competitions and if we should be trying alternative formats.

The most visible evidence that this might be sensible and that others are thinking about this also is the introduction of IJF Team events at World level.

It is really a re-introduction in fact. British Judo has long had a team championships by area. Further back the Budokwai fought team events against other nations.It is however a new format; 5 players rather than 7. It is exciting and great viewing. Hopefully it will soon be a fixture in the Olympic programme.

But for now, the format we use at most events is knockout with partial repecharge. What this means is that even if you face the eventual champion in the first round and lose, you are out and done for the day.

The old saying is that half the competitors go out in the first round. And there is a lot of truth to this idea. Maintaining the Junior WRL I estimate about 30% of all the athletes on the list have never made it out of round one.

So for them, it's an expensive event. 5 or less minutes of mat time and they are out. For the player, coach, team and nation it is saddening.

But what is the impact for the sport?

I would suggest that it is bad for us too. We are trying to make our sport presentable to the TV networks and spectators. Sport is one of the few types of content on TV that is popular with advertisers as being live matters.

But given that at most events half the players are out in the first round, what is the motivation to keep watching? be you a parent, club mate, countryman? Or just a member of the public watching?

If you are the BBC or any TV sports show producer, what do you show the local audience? Unless you are French, Russian or Japanese can you plan around having some good footage of the local player(s)? Probably not.

Judo is a niche sport, interesting but as yet not main event news. It's something that might get a few minutes at the end of a news broadcast. But if you are the BBC, will there be any British players to show? Any footage to cut together to to make a little news piece?

Now imagine a world where we try round-robin (pools). Everyone fights everyone in the category? If you are the BBC suddenly you have multiple fights to get your footage from, even if the player(s) lose in the first round.

If you are a fan, you can watch that first round contest, and look forward to the next round where your favorite comes on the mat again and again and again.

This is just a concept, an idea, not a comprehensive plan. A think piece.

Another area we need to think about is if we should let just anyone enter any competition. In Britain I can enter the British national championships simply by sending a cheque.At the Junior worlds this week, players who have never attended a world ranking event can step onto the world championship tatami.

Do we need to look at other sports formats and have leagues where you get promoted or delegated from depending on your performance?Drop too low on the list and you can't stay at that level, down to level 2. Do well and get back in the top league.

This would perhaps decrease the number of players in events? This might be a good thing especially if we went round-robin.

Smaller venues, with less tatami might be worth considering anyway. Just for the spectator value.

By this I mean, watching 4 (or more) tatami is a less than satisfying experience; even for the most dedicated Judo fan. We have all experienced that moment where you decide to watch mat 1 for a while, just to miss the amazing Ippon on mat 4. So you watch mat 4, and miss the Ippon on mat 2.

Equally, perhaps we need to consider what information we make available to spectators in the hall and on TV.In the hall we have all watched events and wondered what stage the event is at, has so and so player been on again yet? Is this the semi-final?We need to explore how we can inform the spectators (and participants) as to what is going on.

You can see, even in these few paragraphs, that there are many areas that need exploring so that the growth of Judo can continue.

It has only been in Marius Vizer's time as IJF President that Juso has made real changes to grow the sport. In recent years Judo has grown bigger than ever before, the IJF has gone from organising just the World Championships every two years to running events almost every week of the year.

Judo is on TV in more countries and practiced in more countries than ever before. Large and small nations are winning medals. We have live video streaming of all the senior events and many of the junior and cadet events.

Never before in the history of Judo has the IJF been promoting it wider and the momentum I feel is growing.

So for me now is the perfect time for us all to explore ideas and experiment with new ideas locally and share those experiment results online so that the good ideas spread.

I feel very positive as I write this, with the IJF Junior Worlds footage playing live from the USA.

I feel like we are on the cusp of something, it can go forwards and grow or shrink backwards. And the people that decide that are not just the IJF senior officials. It is you and me, the rank and file members of clubs and federations.

You can run a club championships in this day and age and have a live internet stream. Your city championships can have a new and exciting format. Your national championships can have that new innovation that gets the crowd more engaged.

Please, if you read this, take your ideas and share them. Crazy has never been more possible in history; if you have an idea it might be the idea that changes everything.

Astana Judo Grand Prix 2014 Live Stream Day 1.

Coaching styles...

Sunday, August 10, 2014, 02:26 PM

Recently, Bob posted an article reflecting on his coaching style. It resonated with me as did some articles from the every open AnnMaria De Mars. Then I attended the BJA "Matside Coach" training and this blog post is me processing all these things and sorting out my thinking on and around the topic(s).

So...Like Bob, I am not an autocratic "my way or the highway" type coach naturally. In Bob's article he mentions high profile examples of successful coaches that are. And he goes on to consider if his style needs to change.

That got me thinking near identically, do I need to be more of an autocratic style coach. Do I need more bluster and more fire. More "be there!" and less "will you be there?".

Maybe, there is something to be said for the "nice guys come last" quote?

I know outside of coaching that my tendency to try and work with people can be detrimental. Too few people in the Judo community seem to want to actually get on with doing and seem to prefer to form committees and sub-committees and "teams" as opposed to getting the job done. This is true beyond Judo circles.

In my history I have bent over backwards to try and find a path where the other people are happy. On occasion it has worked, but more often recently I have taken the hard-nosed approach and success has come from that. It makes me wonder if more of that is required.

I am not a naturally confrontational person, I don't enjoy the arguments that others seem to enjoy. I prefer to talk about something, define the problem, define some solutions, choose one, and get to work.

But back to my coaching style...

I teach in a university and I am currently wondering if in the new semester a harder more demanding approach might work?

We have a sports club mentality and a strong sport culture in the University. I wonder if taking it the next step and being more focussed on the team and performance is the right direction. Playing the game is what matters versus coming to the club.

I'm considering leaping in with both feet and forming a uni team and a city team. The CIty team I have this idea to "buy" some players (mainly from Camberley) to compete in a selection of events that will raise the team profile.

It will cost money obviously and it will require me approaching the whole process differently. I see the "City" team leading the student team and leading a culture of athletics rather than a culture of a martial arts society.

To do it, my persona and style will need to change. I'll need to be more whistle blowing baseball cap wearing coach and less instructor in judogi. Ideally I can get some coaches in to work on the mat so I can focus on the team elements.

I'll need to be pushier and more demanding. I'll need to set some rules and be ready to enforce them. It's not something that will come naturally, but perhaps it is good to force some change?

Whilst on the "Matside Coaching" course, I had plenty of food for thought. The instructor showed photos of leading coaches matside and having had a opportunity to watch these coaches in person I felt at times the images were in conflict with the message.

The message was clear, this is a BJA course telling you to shutup and behave matside. Be a good little coach and don't argue with the referees etc. Which is a good message and one I agree with... in part.

But when I watch the matside coaches of the world perform, they scream and shout. They are not impassive and quietly watching a well prepared athlete perform.

They are part of the players game, the top coaches are driving the players on. Influencing the outcome; changing the flow of a match.

So for me the message was mixed. And it needs to be I think as at the level of the coaches present mainly, the answer is shutup and behave.

I don't feel that any coach as a kids event (u18) in the UK should be shouting and screaming matside. The "supercoach" performances I see make me sick to the stomach sometimes.

We have such a weak competition structure here in the UK that every event is a little one. So treat them as such coaches. You have nothing riding on it, so chill and enjoy the day.

When we have something worth fighting for, then get excited, get animated. But there is so little at stake at even most national level events you just look silly. Take the suit off unless you are at an EJU/IJF event.Lose the TeamGB tracksuit, this ain't the Olympics.

All that said, we should have events that matter to people in this country. And we should have events where it's appropriate that coaches wear suits and take it serious and engage fully in the players performance. For me it's tragic that we don't have this level of domestic competition in place.

Which brings me back to my coaching style, having said I want to be more autocratic. It will be hard as we have no events of value to take seriously. I created the Hampshire Team Championships to create a local competition that was enjoyable and tangible for my novice players to compete in.

At those events, I'm lucky to talk to my players let alone "supercoach" mode them. I'm normally running the computer and the event on the whole.

But this is good, at that level it's appropriate to keep the level of input low and to teach the players that they should relax by me being relaxed.

And that leads me back to the matside coaching course. I left worrying that the level 1 coaches got the wrong message.

There was a little worrying current of "we have to be professional". Which I felt was being interpreted as take it serious. Where as for the coaches in the room they need to be relaxing and letting the kids they coach enjoy playing the sport.

Which... will be another post in itself. My thoughts on the lack of participation in competition in British Judo are becoming more and more fixed. In short, people seem to take the percentage figures of people that do Judo to people that do Judo and don't compete and interpret it wrong.

I.e. the number thrown around was 3% of people doing Judo and 97% not competing (yes I chose to express it that way intentionally).Yet virtually every coach in that room had competed, especially the older, higher level ones. For me there is a direct link; I meet so few people involved in Judo that were not competing at some stage.

I find it so worrying that people hear the 3% figure and see that as a good reason to to make up terms like "competitive" and "recreational" players. I see people catering and encouraging doing Judo without competing at all.

For me the 3% figure is a blight and should be the otherway around. a small minority of people should not do Judo and just attend a club.

You don't join a golf club and not play golf. You don't join a gym and not workout. You don't join a cricket club and not play.

At this point people are normally turning red and going "but... but... but..."

And yes I know what you are going to say "some people don't want to compete". And right now a majority of people are in that category. And this is a despicable situation which makes me almost ashamed to be part of Judo.

The way I see this is that we have made Judo competitions so undesirable that a vast majority of people don't want to compete.

We desperately need to address this situation and change it. We need to get rid of the all day competitions where it's knockout, miles away and scary.

We need home court advantage, we need round-robin and team events. We need one of matches between people held in the club. We need more and different and we need things we have yet to discover.

We need to lose the coaches that think it is okay to have a majority of your club not playing Judo and just handing over mat fees.

We need to get into this for playing and improving those who come into Judo. We need to remember where we came from and what sport is all about at the core and how Judo was born into the period of history where the Olympic Games were born and athleticism as a social good was ingrained into Judo and the world.

Sorry... rambling.

So in summary, I think I will be a harder nosed coach this semester pushing players to be athletes more.

Social Media and Social Networking for Sport

Recently I wrote a short article about "Crowd Funding for Athletes" which talks about how athletes can use social networks and crowd funding to further their careers.

I thought I would follow up with a small piece about social media.

Both this and the crowd funding article are born a little by the mis-use I see in these potentially fantastic tools.

So... less delve into it.

Social MediaSocial media is all the new avenues to publish things for other people to see. Be that photos on instagram, videos on youtube, podcasts on soundcloud, blogs on wordpress or just status updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Most regular readers will be aware of my experiences with these tools. I've been blogging since 2004, my first lecture on social networking was at the University of Bath in 2008.

Whats good?The key word in social networking and social media is the word "social". So the important thing to keep in mind is that what ever you do is for other people; not you! It's a two way conversation.

So it is important not to make the common mistake of thinking of these tools as sales channels. Too many people use them simply to try and sell/promote things.

So a classic mistake I see daily, is to post things on facebook pages and groups that promote your events that are not welcome. The British Judo association facebook page suffers from this regularly. People who never join any of the conversations blindly post an advert for something they want to promote; then leave.

They ignore the social convention of the community they have joined. It's as if you walked into a room full of people chatting about things and shouted "BUY MY PRODUCT!" then walked out.

Don't do it.

Get the tone rightSimilarly to the "broadcast" idea in the earlier paragraphs; it's really important to understand the culture of the site you are using and post accordingly.

So on vine for example, you had better be funny and understand the memes that flow though day to day. On Facebook, you need to understand how things bubble up into peoples timelines. On Twitter you need to know that things flow by fast.

Which leads me to my Twitter and Facebook rules:

FACEBOOK is for moments, TWITTER is for news.Facebook and Twitter are NOT the same; so don't treat them as such. Probably the biggest mistake I see day to day by organisations more so than individuals is forgetting this.

So, on Twitter, post as many news updates as you can. So for an athlete, a post saying you are about to go on for your first contest before hand. Then another immediately afterwards. See a great Ippon, tweet it right away.

On Facebook, don't share (and yes I have done it) a update that says "About to go on the mat" or "Jimmy down by wazari with 2 minutes to go!". Why? Because as people comment or like an update it will rise up on the timeline and suddenly the 2 minutes to go message is above the "Jimmy wins it by yuko in the end" post you make a little later.

It's much better just to post highlight than a barrage of news updates.

Your voiceThis is the final and maybe most important section.

It's vital that when you use social media and social networking sites that once you understand the community norms, you understand yourself.

By this I mean that you need to be genuine and have your own voice. There is no value in being someone else, or trying to clone someone elses style.

Equally, you have the opportunity to share a voice you may not use elsewhere. And you can have more than one voice.

So for example, in one medium you might share that technical voice. On vine your funny side.

On this blog, I have shared my personal educational journey through an entire BSC. On Judometrics.com I have posted more formal numbers based posts. On my personal site I share geeky non Judo stuff.

Dr Annmaria De Mars is a great example of this voice idea. She has two blogs; both are uniquely her voice. BUt both are different; one Judo, one Business. Like my blogs each is unique, but share attributes.

So in summary...Know what the norms are for the sites you use and take the time to learn how you can fit in and contribute to the conversations.

Any questions, you can find me on all the usual social media and social networking sites as well as on email to lw@judocoach.com

Much like JuJitsu, Kung Fu, Karate, Aikido and other marial arts, Judo is an effective and powerful self defence. It does not however incorporate any kicks or punches. In Judo throws are used along with ground fighting techniques including arm locks, strangles, chokes and pinning techniques.

Judo in Europe is strong, and has been so historically for a long time. Specifically, France and Germany, along with the former Soviet Block countries. European Judo has been instrumental in the progress and history of Judo. The formation of the European Judo Union (EJU) was the for runner to the International Judo Federation (IJF) and is a major force in modern Judo.